“I am retiring today,” Democratic Rep. John Conyers announced on Tuesday after another woman who once worked in his office came forward to allege that he touched her inappropriately “by stroking and rubbing my thighs” — and once appeared naked before her.
As can only happen in Washington, there was immediate confusion over what the career politician meant. The New York Times said Conyers “announced Tuesday that he will leave Congress immediately, and he endorsed his son, John Conyers III, to replace him.”
But CBS reported that Conyers’ great-nephew, 29-year old Michigan state Senator Ian Conyers, “was adamant that the elder Conyers was not resigning, but retiring instead.”
Again, only in Washington.
Later, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), a fellow member of the Black Caucus, read a statement from Conyers on the House floor saying that Conyers had notified congressional officials and Michigan’s governor that he was stepping down.
Conyers, 88, is the longest-serving current House member (yet another argument for term limits). And the elderly Democrat insists that the repeated allegations about sexual improprieties committed by him will not tarnish his reputation.
“My legacy can’t be compromised or diminished in any way by what we’re going through now. This too shall pass. My legacy will continue through my children,” Conyers said on a local Michigan radio station Tuesday morning.
To Conyers, his House seat belongs to his family. Ian Conyers said he also plans to run for the Detroit-area seat held by his great-uncle, setting up a battle with John Conyers III.
Conyers’ family downplayed the allegations.
“His doctor advised him that the rigor of another campaign would be too much for him just in terms of his health,” Ian Conyers told the Times.
And Conyers himself called the alleged victims liars.
“Whatever they are, they are not accurate or they’re not true and I think that they’re something that I can’t explain where they came from,” Conyers said.
“This goes with the issue of politics. The game of politics which we’re in, we take what happens, we deal with it, we pass on and move on forward as we keep going trying to make as much as we can of this tremendous opportunity that’s been given to me for so long,” he said.
Conyers has been facing calls to step down since it was revealed last month that he paid a $27,000 settlement out of taxpayer funds to a woman who claims he sexually harassed her.
Several other former aides, including Deanna Maher, his deputy chief of staff, also said Conyers had demanded sexual favors or touched them inappropriately.
In the latest allegations, Elisa Grubbs said Conyers slid his hand up her skirt and rubbed her thighs while she was sitting next to him in the front row of a church, The Detroit News reported.
“Elisa Grubbs, who said she worked for Conyers from 2001-13, claims she also witnessed him touching and stroking the legs and buttocks of Marion Brown, Grubbs’ cousin, and other female employees of the congressman on ‘multiple occasions.’
“When Rep. Conyers would inappropriately touched me like this, my eyes would pop out and I would be stunned in disbelief,” Grubbs wrote in an affidavit posted on Twitter by Brown’s attorney, Lisa Bloom. …
Grubbs described a time that Conyers slid his hand up her skirt while she was sitting next to him in the front row of a church.
She said she was startled and jumped to her feet, exclaiming, “He just ran his hand up my thigh!” — an incident she said was witnessed by other staffers.
On another occasion, she was at Conyers’ home when he emerged from the bathroom naked, she said. Grubbs ran out of the house.
Grubbs said Conyers referred to her and Brown as “Big Girl Cousins” and would often say, “Those are some big girls.”
Both parties’ leaders in the House — Rep. Paul Ryan and Rep. Nancy Pelosi — have called for Conyers to step down. He faces an ethics committee investigation to boot. It’s unclear if the probe will continue if Conyers steps down.